Author Archive
Pathetic Parliaments
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Leaders who lie
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s sad that we no longer have any ability as a community to hold our leaders accountable for their words or promises. Take our current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and his current decision to spend $38 million dollars on an advertising campaign supporting his new resources company taxation. Quite apart from the fact that the application of simple logic would tell any thinking human being that the expenditure is immoral …
He was asked in 2007 if he would resign if he had not delivered this system within his first term.
Mr Rudd replied: “In terms of establishing the office of the auditor-general with clear-cut guidelines to whom every television campaign is submitted for approval before that television campaign is implemented, you have my absolute, 100 per cent guarantee that that will occur.
“One hundred per cent guarantee and each one of you here can hold me accountable for that.”
But two months ago the auditor-general was sidelined from the job.
Somehow, when you have achieved power the phrase “one hundred percent guarantee” actually means, well nothing I guess!
Anyone got any idea how we can elect honest persons to be our leaders, and failing that, how do we force them to remain honest, or depart? As far as I am aware Rudd hasn’t even felt the need to explain his change of heart.
Unfortunately, those who aspire to power seem to be the ones who know that those over whom they exercise power are totally apathetic.
Is it unreasonable to expect telco gouging to be stopped?
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A colleague, knowing that I had recently fallen foul of yet another telco for thousands of dollars of “excess usage charges”, sent me this link, presumably thinking it might make me feel better.
Instead, it prompted me to recall that this is the fourth time a telco (a different one each time) has gouged, or attempted to, gouge me.
I am unable to use the services of one large Australian Telco because, even though they do not attempt to collect it, they retain a record of a debt in their system. So, if I attempt to sign up for a new service, they accept my application subject to the payment of an eight year old $14,000 debt.
Another luckily collapsed under the weight of its rich and powerful promoters while suing me for thousands in excess usage.
Yet another continued to charge me $500 per month for services which were available from other vendors, and to their new customers, for about $90 per month. In this case I was an early adopter of a new service and ended up paying several thousand dollars more than the provider charged later signups for the same service. They hid behind their “contract” to insist on payment. Read More→
Storm in a Teacup?
Posted by: | CommentsI know it is just a game, and I know I have more important things to do than post this blog entry. But, I can’t help wondering what it is that I am missing about the ginormous kerfuffle encompassing Victoria and the NRL.
According to the official Storm website there are 36 players on the NRL squad. In the absence of any better information I will assume that this number is not unusual. So, what is the magnitude and significance of the overpayments?
Read More→Firefox - sec_error_revoked_certificate Issue
Posted by: | CommentsWhen Firefox web browser checks a security certificate, it also checks with the issuing authority if the certificate is valid. It appears that, near a certificate’s expiration date, the issuing authority may release a new certificate. The two certificates have conflicting expiration dates.
For reasons unknown, this caused Firefox to report a sec_error_revoked_certificate error and refuse to allow you to connect to the site!
To resolve this, presumably at the same time reducing the security of your browsing, complete the following:
For PC Users:
- Open Firefox.
- Go to Tools the top menu and select Options.
- Click the Advance tab.
- Click the following button:
Encryption, then
Certificates, then
Validation - Check “Do not use OCSP for certificate validation.”
- Click OK and restart Firefox.
For Mac Users:
- Open Firefox.
- Go to Firefox in the top menu and select Preferences.
- Click the Advance button.
- Click the following buttons:
Encryption, then
Validation - Un-check “Use the OCSP to confirm the validity of certificates.”
- Click OK and restart Firefox.
SMH brings us the future
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It’s about 7pm on New Year’s Eve so we have just 5 hours or so of 2009 left.
But, Dylan Welch at the Sydney Morning Herald isn’t letting a small fact like that stop him from reporting that the Victorian Police will be making an arrest tomorrow. That does, of course, presume that the fugitive in question doesn’t read the “Early Edition” and change his plans.
Beware of bidpax.com
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A few weeks ago Facebook carried an advertising campaign for a business called BidPax, a so-called penny auction site. Briefly, you pay BidPax for bids to be placed on their auctions. Each bid costs about $.70. When an auction starts, bidders use their pre-purchased bids. Each bid placed increases the price of the item being sold by one cent and adds 10 seconds to the duration of the auction.
Obviously, anyone who wins such an auction appears to get the item at a huge discount — provided they are prepared to forget that each one cent bid cost $.72. However, even allowing for this, the history of auctions on BidPax suggests that the winning bidder is indeed saving huge sums when compared with the recommended retail price of the items won.
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